The History of NNIC

The history of the Nimbin Neighbourhood & Information Centre reflects the history of Nimbin. We, along with our community, have evolved through many incarnations and innovations, to become the organisation we are today.

The 1970s In the beginning was the Aquarius Festival in 1973, which was a national event organised by the Australian Union of Students. This brought a surge of young and energetic folks into the community, many of whom stayed on to populate Nimbin and eventually the Northern Rivers region. Five years later the “Rainbow Information Centre”(RIC) was established by Peter Pedals (Van der Wyk), to meet the needs of the emerging community of Nimbin. The RIC ran from the front office of the then “Media Centre” (now the Nimbin Environment Centre), and it was the RIC which eventually evolved to become the Nimbin Neighbourhood Centre. The media centre was oriiginally the local RSL office and was aquired by the ASU for the Aquarius festival.

The building now houses the Nimbin Apothecary, Nimbin Environment Centre and meeting and healing spaces.

Back in those days the organisation was a self-funded voluntary association which provided very basic and vital services to a new & emerging population.

The Community Noticeboard was used by community members to pass on info and messages to each other. Very few people had phones and so the “Red Phone” (payphone) next to a comfortable chair was used by many when they came to town to ring family & make business calls.

The “Rural Resettlement Task Force” (RRTF) moved into the Centre and began to lobby the State Government to legislate to allow Local Governments to accept “Multiple Occupancy” Communities, and alternative building techniques such as pole frame constructions.